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Spike Wells
Bobby Wellins Quartet: What Was Happening
by Chris May
In 1965 tenor saxophonist Bobby Wellins made an indelible mark on jazz history with his contribution to pianist Stan Tracey's Jazz Suite Inspired By Dylan Thomas's Under Milk Wood (Columbia). The exquisite Starless And Bible Black" is the most frequently cited track (check the YouTube below) and is indicative of the album's overall beauty. For a while, things looked good for the Glasgow-born, London-based Wellins, but by the end of the decade health problems" closed down his career until around ...
read moreThe Qow Trio: The Hold Up
by Neil Duggan
Anyone whose musical taste yearns for the type of '50s and '60s sounds of artists such as Sonny Rollins, Jackie Mclean and Lee Morgan, may find The Hold Up is just what they seek. This is the second album from the Qow Trio (pronounced Cow). Taking their name from a composition on Dewey Redman's album, Coincide (Impulse, 1974), the trio are linked by a love of the tradition and the freedom to explore the saxophone, bass and drums format, without ...
read moreTubby Hayes Quartet: The Complete Hopbine '69
by Chris May
Of all the many talented jazz musicians who blazed trails in Britain in the late 1950s and 1960s, tenor saxophonist Tubby Hayes in 2022 stands among the tallest. Hayes, too, is one of a handful of British musicians of his generation who have been practically deified by some of the emergent young players who are currently invigorating the British scene. Hayes died tragically young, aged thirty-eight, in 1973, from heart disease exacerbated by heroin use. So his ...
read moreSpike Wells / Gwilym Simcock / Malcolm Creese: Reverence
by John Kelman
Given its often spiritual nature, it's not surprising to find men of the cloth with a deep love of music. Still, finding priests who are talented jazz musicians is a greater challenge, but in the case of British drummer Spike Wells the order of events is important. Ordained as a priest in 1996, Wells began his professional life in the 1960s, playing with artists including iconic saxophonists Tubby Hayes and Ronnie Scott. He's a fine and flexible player whose Reverence ...
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